Lois McMaster Bujold
American author of science fiction and fantasy works, most noted for the works in her Vorkosigan Saga.
There is no safety. Only varying states of risk. And failure.
If you're trying to take a roomful of people by surprise, it's a lot easier to hit your targets if you don't yell going through the door.
Hands are integral with brains, almost another lobe for intelligence. What one does not know through one's hands, one does not truly know.
Mark's own taste in women, if ever he should live to exercise it, ran more to something like that little blonde clone...Somebody short, soft, pink, timid, somebody who wouldn't kill and eat him after they mated.
All true wealth is biological.
It was seldom he found himself in company who made him feel this stupid. It was probably good for his soul.
I cannot emphasize enough that I do not start with a plan or agenda and mechanically manipulate characters and events to carry it out. I set characters in motion, and let them teach me what the book is.
Suicidal glory is the luxury of the irresponsible. We're not giving up. We're waiting for a better opportunity to win.
He gave me no sign. I was never the sort to receive portents, or to delude myself that I had. Silence was always my portion, in return for my prayers.
"I thought they'd never fall asleep." Ivan paused; a slow smirk displaced the snarl on his face. "But they were smiling, when they finally did."
Do it for yourself. The universe will be around to collect its cut later.
Some men just aren't cut out for paternity. Better they should realize it before and not after they become responsible for a son.
Leadership is mostly a power over imagination, and never more so than in combat. The bravest man alone can only be an armed lunatic. The real strength lies in the ability to get others to do your work.
The best strategies run on rails. Live or die, you make your goal.
"You go on. You just go on. There's nothing more to it, and there's no trick to make it easier. You just go on."
"And what do you find on the other side? When you go on?"
"Your life again. What else?"
"Is that a promise?"
"It's an inevitability. No trick. No choice. You just go on."
From fried witchetty grubs to gold-plated turnips, when you're a writer you never know what's going to appear on your plate next. It keeps a woman alert, it does.
The confusion of mind you dub honor is a disease.
There are a number of people in the universe I'd be willing to double-cross, but my own wounded aren't among 'em.